ternary vs if

[thenewguy]

In what situations would you use either one?

And is there a differents the ternary:

z = (x > y) ? z : y;

looks the exact same as the if:

if (x>y)
{
    x=y
}
else
{
    x=z
}
    

I'm new, so I'm certain I'm missing something, but why have to functions that do the same thing? or are they supposed to be used for specific task?

[sohguanh]

For simple one liner if-else statement we can use the ternary operator.

z = (x > y) ? z : y;

is equivalent to

if (x > y) {
z = z;
} else {
z = y;
}

[thenewguy]

uh.... I know.... it looks like you just quoted me... i'm asking what is the difference, not "how do you use ternary's"...

Or I could ask is there a right and wrong time to use either?

[Disch]

you had it backwards in your original post:

x = (condition) ? (value_if_true) : (value_if_false);

In your OP, you seemed to think the false value was first (or in any event, the ternary code you wrote doesn't match the if/else code you wrote).


Anyway that's a symptom of one of the biggest reasons not to use the ternary operator: clarity.

Ternary is nice for shortcutting code where if/else would be too verbose, but it can make code a little harder to follow.

As for performance tradeoffs, there usually aren't any. Ternary will be the same as if/else in many cases (it probably will even compile to the same code a lot of time). Really the only reason to use one or the other is stylistic / clarity related.

Personally, I don't use the ternary operator very often.

[thenewguy]

oic lol yeah i meant to make them match up I wasn't gonna a z at all, but did to make it more readable.

Anyway that's the reason I was wondering, I like the way if/else looks and it's easy (for thenewguy) to understand. I was just wondering so that somewhere down the road i didn't hit any big issues. Thanks you both. :)

[sohguanh]

Personally for me, I want to save typing strokes so I uses ternary operator for simple one-liner statements. I guess I am influenced by Perl one-liner code culture.

In terms of statement execution performance I think both should be the same with modern machines.

[Disch]

If you have something that can be neatly summed up in a ternary operator, then it makes sense. But how often do situations like that really come up? In my experience they're not very common.

Also... nested ternaries are evil.